Category: personal

tonight was the annual pack 205 “blue & gold” banquet. this picture pretty much sums up my feelings of the event.

the leader’s material for our discipleNOW has finally been published. we finished it today. i also finished the student material and we started publishing it. it would like to see an adobe acrobat version of the material CLICK HERE. there is still plenty that needs to be done on the Dnow but life is much better now that i know the leaders will soon have their material.

I FINISHED IT! well kind of. i’ve been struggling with the dnow material for about a month now. mainly it was because i just couldn’t figure out where it was supposed to go. i’m in one of those times right now that when i pray begging GOD for guidance HE just responds with a chuckle and says “nope! I’m not gonna tell you right now.” it sure does make for a struggle writing stuff when GOD decides to do that. the good side is that for some reason those times always help my relationship with HIM. the other part of the writing struggle has been tons of distractions but truthfully i live for distractions and usually consider the distractions some of the best ministry opportunities so i can’t really complain.

anyway, i have finally gotten all four studies and general themes into a word document. now i have to proof them and get them in the desktop publisher with all those nice graphics and images. that’s the easy part though.

HURRAY!

march 11-13 we will have our annual discipleNOW. for those who don’t know what a dnow is it’s basically a small group retreat in people’s homes with large group worship added each night. our have traditionally been wonderful because it’s a good way for allot of people to connect intimately with others (on of the former participants reads this blog and he can correct me if i’m wrong). this year i decided to see if the world of blogging could help us with the dnow (i decided this a little late but hopefully it will still work). we’ve set up a blog for all of our leaders to be involved with. this way we can get ideas and such out to them but they can also comment on and improve upon those ideas. everyone seems excited about it. now we just have to see if it’s worth the effort. if it works i’ll probably start doing one for each of the larger things we do during the year.

here’s the blog if you want to follow it’s progress towards being effective or being a waste of time.

this door is in nicaragua. i fell in love with it during my first visit to the country. the reason for my love for the door is the irony of the door. nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere and driambe is one of the poorer cities within nicaragua. if you saw it you would know it instantly.

there is extreme want within the city. i don’t mean a want or desire for things but rather a desire for the necessities of life. the people of the city need food, water, shelter, clothing, etc. most important many people within the nation need hope. hope is the biggest thing necessary for life.

that’s why the picture blows me away. in the midst of a situation that many would proclaim hopeless the owner of this door has decided to proclaim “the LORD is my SHEPHERD i shall not be in want.”

that’s impressive faith. that faith that will make a difference and probably already has.

right now i feel just like the above picture. i’m working on material for our discipleNOW (material which should have been finished three weeks ago) and it’s simply not coming to me right now. i’m strugling through trying to make sense of what GOD wants to say through this stuff and it’s just not coming very easily.

SIDE NOTE – the above picture came from Si Smith’s comic illustrations of JESUS’s 40 days in the desert. He is posting a different image everyday of lent. you can find them here. by the end of lent all the images will be available for download. i would have never thought that comic illustrations of JESUS would be so moving.

i can’t believe it has taken me so long to realize that landover baptist church had a youth ministry. i’ve followed landover with interest for years. i mean what could be better than a church with a tag line that says “the largest assembly of worthwhile people to ever exist. unsaved are NOT welcomed.” does it get any better than that? yet i’ve never imagined that they would have a youth ministry. i lucked into their youth ministry today while reading about how “JESUS didn’t have long hair.” what i read was amazing. it’s youth ministry at it’s finest. 🙂

every so often i try to go visit another church’s youth ministry and learn from what they are doing (or not doing). what better example could there be than the youth ministry at landover? i’ve got to learn from them. hopefully, with lots of work i could lead a youth ministry as good as theirs. 🙂

i just got back from watching the movie “constantine” and i’m still not sure how i feel about it. the movie is blatantly spiritual without preaching a specific agenda. it is nice to see faith claims being treated seriously. constantine discusses CHRISTian theology on forgiveness and the battle between good and evil and it does it in such a way that good discussions will come from the movie. i love the fact that hollywood has moved beyond making fun of spirituality. constantine is just the latest example of hollywood being open to spirituality. they approach the theme of constantine with an appropriate sense of respect and it shows within it’s content. there was some serious depth within some of the movie’s dialogue. the conversations between constantine and gabriel are great.

what i’m not sure of it how good the movie was. i liked it because i was excited about the extreme spiritual nature of the movie but i’m not sure i would have liked the movie if the spiritual content had not been there. sometimes the movie felt a little slow. i wish the whole thing had been a little shorter.

this is jonathan and he is our new “official” “minister of belonging.” he has taken up the task of making sure that every person that joins us for anything feels like they “belong.” what a great word “belonging” is. we all have a need to “belong.” we need to know that we are not in this on our own and even that we are not just part of a group. nope we need to “belong.” “belonging” is so much more than just being a part of something.

jonathan has decided to make sure that people “belong” with us.

why is it that the most legitimate needs arise on the day in which i need to be most focused? i really needed about 5 hours of solitude for writing some bible study material. instead of quietness and peace i received tons of urgent messages today on real needs. these were real needs (from my youngest child having a headache to a church member being stranded on the interstate and not having anyone else to call). being a good dad and a minister meant helping with these needs. yet i still need to write two studies and format two others. i didn’t get anything done on those and i really needed to since i need to have them finished a week ago. it always seems to happen this way.